The inspiring, true story of an extraordinary nineteenth-century community where blacks and whites lived as equals.

A hundred and fifty years ago in the heartland of the United States, amid a roiling sea of racism and hatred, a community decided that there could be a different America. In this place, schools and churches were completely integrated, blacks and whites intermarried, and power and wealth were shared by both races. In order for this to happen, the citizens of this place had to keep secrets, to break the laws of the world outside, to sweep aside fear and embrace hope.

Fittingly, the name of the town was Covert.

Now, in an astounding historical detective feat, Anna-Lisa Cox uncovers the saga of this place that took the road untaken. Starting in the 1860s, and for decades later, the people of Covert, Michigan, attempted to do what then seemed impossible: love one's neighbor - regardless of skin color - like oneself.

Drawing upon private diaries, overlooked documents, oral histories, and contemporary records, Cox vividly gives us intimate glimpses of the people who lived there, from William Conner, the Civil War veteran who went on to become Michigan's first black justice of the peace, to Elizabeth Gillard, who survived a shipwreck that left her and her family washed onto Covert's shores, only to come to love the unusual community she came to call home.